Duty First: West Point and the Making of American Leaders

Great read. This speaks to leadership development. Ruggero chronicles these people going from high school seniors to leaders of our military. I am confident after reading this that our military leadership training is A1.

I am looking to get into West Point at a young age and this book gave me some importants facts that should help me for the future. Great book, strongly sugest that you get it.

One of the central characters of this book is MAJ Rob Olson. He is the TAC officer for the company that Mr. Roggero follows through a year at West Point. After the events of this book, MAJ Olson was promoted early, went to the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He then went to Hawaii to serve with the 25th Infantry Division (Light).I worked for MAJ Olson when he assumed duties as the Operations Officer at 2-11 Field Artillery, 25 ID(L), Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. About two months after he assumed this duty position, he was killed in a tragic helicopter accident which also killed six others and wounded scores more.He had told me about this book, in passing, soon before his death and, after his death, I got and read the book. It is a wonderful tribute to him and his leadership style. He believed in empowering his subordinates and letting leaders grow by doing. I think it is great that his children, when they are older, will be able to read this book and see what a great officer their father was.I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what a leader really is.

Books about leadership are big sellers today, from the 'leadership secrets' of some historical figure to the experiences and opinions of industry bigwigs. In most cases, these books seem to have the common approach of taking questionable insights and reducing them to trite slogans.This book isn't like that. As an in-depth view of 'America's premier leadership school' (if it does say so itself), this book not only contains valuable lessons on leadership, but is also probably the best and most comprehensive book I've ever read on any of the federal service academies -- and I've read a few.When the Army prepared to write a report on how leaders are developed at the US Military Academy (aka West Point), they discovered that, in fact, there wasn't any formal training doctrine at all. The lessons of leadership, and the means of transmitting them, had developed informally over time.As a result, West Point cadets are not spoon-fed maxims and 'principles.' Instead, they're put in positions where they can draw conclusions and learn lessons via their own experiences. Ed Ruggero follows the same course: In telling us the stories of a handful of cadets during their journey through the Academy, he doesn't bludgeon us with 'The point of that was...' We learn as the cadets do -- and if we, or they, don't pick up some insights about leadership from this, maybe we, like they, aren't paying close enough attention.As I said, this book isn't just about leadership. It's also an extremely good guide to the life of a cadet at the USMA. Having recently read a book about The Citadel ('In Glory's Shadow' by Catherine Manegold), I was struck -- and hard -- by the vast difference between that school's 'adversarial' approach to cadet training, and West Point's team-based, but still rigorous, method. Of course, West Point used to be 'adversarial' too. But, as Ruggero explains, that approach has been abandoned, in part because it was judged a failure in preparing cadets for the 'real world' of commanding soldiers in the field. This book doesn't settle the Old Way Versus New Way debate by any means, but is a strong argument in favor of a training regime based on a desire to succeed, instead of fear of failure and (what some would call) abuse.I would strongly encourage any young person interested in attending a service academy, or any parent of a current or prospective cadet, to buy this book and read it closely. MBA students and business leaders looking for leadership lessons from a school that has been training leaders for two centuries will find a lot to profit from too.

The Author has done a magnificent job of what it is like to be a cadet at the modern US Military Academy. From Cadet Basic Training to Graduation, the reader gets to understand how West Points turns mainly teenagers into Army Officers. The author also profiles the Officers stationed at the Academy and their many different opinions on what it takes to make a leader in the American Army. I also enjoyed the highs and lows of the cadets as they struggled with their new lives and the problems of cadets who are not much older training them.All in all, the best book on West Point since "the Long Gray Line" and essential for anyone interested in how the US military is run.